Anyway, work continued on the Avenue this past weekend...
Topic No.1
Have you looked at the parking instructions yet?
The floating lane? As EV Grieve reader Blue Glass said to me, "only an engineer could make street traffic so confusing."
Topic No. 2
The possible impact on local business. Foot traffic aside ... a lot of the stores here are the kind in which people are used to quickly parking and zipping in for the goods (especially during holidays, where cars are double-parked on 11th Street around to First Avenue for Veniero's) ... How will the stores accommodate customers who want to stop for a few minutes to make a purchase? Ditto for quick deliveries. The bus and bike lanes have removed some parking spots. Several shop owners are worried about the reduced parking options... look for a story on the topic soon from a local TV station...
Topic No. 3
Not everyone is really hip to the dedicated bike/bus lanes yet...
Here's an example of someone stopping for a quick pick up at Veniero's ... what you don't see here is the bicyclist nearly taking off the car door...
It will take some time here for everyone to learn to live with the changes... motorists...cyclists...pedestrians...merchants...cops...at least until the city paints in the green bike lane.
Updated: Noonish... As for the local news report I mentioned... NY1 has filed a report, East Village Businesses Find Fault With New Bus, Bike Lanes. To the story:
The new bus and bicycle lanes along First and Second Avenues are part of a major city traffic overhaul, but local business owners say the lanes are taking up parking spaces and creating obstacles for delivery trucks.
Business owners say the lanes, which stretch from Houston Street to 34th Street, force delivery men to walk into the bicycle lanes and forces them to run the risk of injury.
"My truck has to park away from the curb. Now my employees have to cross through an active bike lane and there's a possibility of being hit by a bicycle, and there's cyclists getting hurt. My driver's getting hurt," said hardware store owner Jim Doria.
"Should have the bike lane on the other side, the way it was before and parking would be on the same side," said business owner Jawad Rasul. "I think that would be a lot better for the bikers and for the store owners."
And the comments are getting going on this topic...
Previously on EV Grieve:
Hot tar for a hot night
The Second Avenue bike lanes: What do we think so far?
For further reading:
Matt Harvey had a piece in the Post Monday titled, Attack of the killer bikes!